Introdution by Mark Burnstein. 13 of 42 copies. Signed by Walker, Burnstein, and printer Andy Malcolm. Shows Trump and his White House cabinet

Walker created thirteen new wood engravings for the edition, each parodying the relationship between Trump and various members of his administration. He also reimagined the poem’s famous map. In Henry Holiday’s original 1876 illustrations, the map is literally blank; an empty rectangle bordered with a double line, the surrounding nautical labels – longitude, latitude, cardinal points etc. – completely useless since empty of any referents. Walker’s frontispiece for this 2019 edition, titled ‘The Snark Map’, adds at least some detail: the sea is suggested by horizontal blue dashes, and there is the ship and monstrous fish, of the style one might find decorating an early modern atlas. Most curious is the mysterious figure of a man lying on his back, using a kayak paddle to propel himself, having attached a small sail to his feet. The map is dominated by the meandering line indicating the bizarre and directionless route of the ship – of state, perhaps? Walker clearly couldn’t resist ‘filling in’ the blank space of the original to make his satirical point. In doing so, however, he arguably sacrifices some of the immediacy of Carroll’s startling challenge to our rational and routine ways of thinking. With his new iteration of the Snark map, Walker is working in a long tradition of using cartographic imagery for political and satirical ends, one established by Utopia (1516) and Leviathan (1651).

Ex Carta

George A. Walker’s 2019 edition of Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark reimagines the Bellman’s Map as a vehicle for political satire, filling the famous blank with Trump-era allegory. By supplying detail where Carroll offered none, it abandons the philosophical conceit of the original, replacing the void with a lampoon of contemporary politics.

 has been interpreted in myriad ways since its publication in 1876 Its dreamlike – and at times nightmarish – logic seems to tap into deep archetypes, creating very subjective resonances for the individual reader. In this 2019 edition of the poem, published by Cheshire Cat Press, and responding to the first presidential term of Donald Trump, Canadian engraver George A. Walker (b.1960) uses the text as a vehicle for political satire, lampooning the first term of U.S. President Donald Trump. ‘It’s hard not to see the parallels,’ Walker remarked, drawing comparisons between Carroll’s hapless, unqualified Snark-hunting crew and Trump’s turbulent, frequently changing cabinet (Ponemone, 2018).

Walker created thirteen new wood engravings for the edition, each parodying the relationship between Trump and various members of his administration. He also reimagined the poem’s famous map. In Henry Holiday’s original 1876 illustrations, the map is literally blank; an empty rectangle bordered with a double line, the surrounding nautical labels – longitude, latitude, cardinal points etc. – completely useless since empty of any referents.

Walker’s frontispiece for this 2019 edition, titled ‘The Snark Map’, adds at least some detail: the sea is suggested by horizontal blue dashes, and there is the ship and monstrous fish, of the style one might find decorating an early modern atlas. Most curious is the mysterious figure of a man lying on his back, using a kayak paddle to propel himself, having attached a small sail to his feet. The map is dominated by the meandering line indicating the bizarre and directionless route of the ship – of state, perhaps? Walker clearly couldn’t resist ‘filling in’ the blank space of the original to make his satirical point. In doing so, however, he arguably sacrifices some of the immediacy of Carroll’s startling challenge to our rational and routine ways of thinking. With his new iteration of the Snark map, Walker is working in a long tradition of using cartographic imagery for political and satirical ends, one established by 

Walker’s 2019 edition of The Hunting of the Snark